Lucky Day - You'll get no argument from me that Wells is tough! He was an intellectual, as much as a novelist, and that shows in everything he wrote. One example: The War of the Worlds makes far more sense if we know that it was published side-by-side (in a magazine) with an article attacking British colonialism in Africa. It completely changes how you read the novel, once you know that. So not only is his prose tough, but he's engaged in all sorts of intellectual debates of his own time.

The Gods Themselves is about the aliens with three sexes (or one, depending). Very different from the usual Asimov. The other 70s Asimov I really like is "The Bicentenial Man," which is better than most of the robot novels before and after.

This thread makes me want to read Dune again, which I haven't done for years…